Gray v. Spillman’s Empirical Analysis
925 F.2d 90 · 1991
Citation profile
36 federal appellate · 3 district · 1 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 75 later decisions — most recently June 2019 · most notably Williams v. Griffin (1991), Daskalea v. District of Columbia (2000)
36 federal appellate · 3 district · 1 state decisions
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Applies 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Civil Rights Act of 1871 / Section 1983 (Ku Klux Klan Act))
Relies on Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc. · Harlow v. Fitzgerald · Monroe v. Pape · Carey v. Piphus · Memphis Community School District v. Stachura
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 75 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“In Gray, the Fourth Circuit noted [i]t has long been held that beating and threatening a person in the course of custodial interrogation violates the fifth and fourteenth amendments of the Constitution. [Citations omitted.] The suggestion that an interrogee’s constitutional rights are transgressed only if he suffers physical injury demonstrates a fundamental misconception of the fifth and fourteenth amendments, indeed, if not our system of criminal justice. ■”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“[i]t is not [this court’s] job to weigh the evidence, to count how many affidavits favor the plaintiff and how many oppose [her], or to disregard stories that seem hard to believe.” Gray v. Spillman, 925 F.2d 90, 95 (4th Cir.1991). Instead, such credibility determinations are within the province of the jury. Id.; see also McCray v. Pee Dee Reg'l Transp. Auth., 263 Fed.Appx. 301, 303 (4th Cir.2008) (”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“Having proven the constitutional violation, and absent immunity considerations, § 1983 requires nothing more to establish the defendants' liability. The existence of an interrogee's physical injuries is relevant in assessing the amount of actual damages; it is not a prerequisite to suit.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.